IMAGINE an American election in which two-thirds of the senators and three-quarters of the state governors up for re-election are defeated. It would be a landside to end all landslides. (When Ronald Reagan won 98% of the electoral-college votes in the presidential election of 1984, only four Senate seats changed hands out of 33 races). Yet this is the level of turnover happening now at the provincial level in China, without the democracy: ballot papers dropped ceremoniously into large red boxes create a mere semblance of it.
Since the start of 2016 China’s president, Xi Jinping, has replaced 20 of the Communist Party’s 31 provincial secretaries, as the most powerful leaders at that level are known. He has also shuffled 27 of the provincial governorships (governors are second-in-command). For local leaders, April was the cruellest month: ten jobs changed hands. By the autumn, almost every province will have felt the effects—including Hong Kong, where a new leader was named in March....Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/2rUm4iG
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